Last updated 01/26/2016 for patch 1.13.
Note: There is a known issue where images may be displayed incorrectly on mobile devices. As a temporary fix, please use a different browser, such as Safari or Google Chrome.
1.13 Tier List: Glamourshots Galore
Hello and welcome back to Broken Myth’s monthly tier list! The meta in 1.13 is more aggressive and snowball-y than the meta was back in 1.12 due to Kestrel’s immense early power. However, because of a lack of significant hero buffs or nerfs, the top heroes haven’t changed too much. Most notably, Kestrel has moved up; seeing little play in 1.12, she’s now seeing a lot of play in 1.13 following ShinKaigan’s fantastic and inspiring performance with Kestrel in the VIPL grand finals. People have gotten much more used to playing this archer and it turns out that last patch, no one had yet unlocked her full potential. We saw a new hero, Reim, drop into the Fold (read about his Root mechanics here!) this patch, but we haven’t seen him make much of an impact yet.
As was the case in the last tier list, there are three categories – one for each position – and each of these categories is further split into three tiers. Tier 3 heroes need a little love to be nudged into viability, Tier 2 heroes are pretty good but not the best, and Tier 1 heroes are the most powerful heroes in the current meta.
Something new in this tier list is integration with Broken Myth’s new builds page! You can click on a hero’s name in the tier list to view up-to-date builds for that hero, and we reference some specific builds in the tier list. Hopefully, this will help you familiarize yourself with top-tier heroes that you want to try out but have no idea how to build! Without further ado, let’s get to the tier list!
Lane Carry
Tier 3 – Getting There
9 SAW – He came, he SAWed, and… he died. SAW still suffers from the same problems as always – a clunky kit that makes him walk like a snail and eat skillshot after skillshot. Though admittedly fantastic at shredding through turrets like a wood chipper through, well, wood, that’s only because turrets can’t walk away. The only play he really sees is in either lower tiers or in the gimmicky buff-the-SAW comp, featuring a CP Adagio, Phinn or Ardan, and our favorite machine gun on legs.
Tier 2 – Simply Amazing
8 Joule – Joule has received a very modest boost in popularity because of how effective CP Joule is at annihilating the extremely popular double squishy comps. However, because of how much coordination and skill it takes to play a comp involving CP Joule, she’s definitely not top of the meta right now.
7 Kestrel – Kestrel is pretty damn strong. However, she still isn’t that great of a laner due to those dang body-blocking minions. She can outtrade almost anyone 1v1 if she is able to unload her entire quiver into them, but those pesky minions in lane mean that she is usually the one being outtraded, as smart laners will be standing safely behind their minions.
6 Skye – Despite receiving no nerfs to her damage in teamfights, Skye has fallen out of favor in lane. She could clear lane instantly with a single Suri Strike last patch, and the change to her Suri Strike noticeably weakened Skye’s laning efficiency; taking longer to clear waves means that she’s more vulnerable in lane, and can’t rotate nearly as well.
5 Skaarf – Wait, what? This flying escargot didn’t receive any buffs – how’d he move up? Well, as it turns out, Spitfire has a really really long range. The current meta in pubs often revolves around poking the everloving crap out of your enemy with shiny Halcyon arrows, and Skaarf can supplement this with his own spells to completely zone out your enemy.
4 Celeste – If it seems like Celeste and Skaarf are always close together on the tier list, it’s because they are! Their similar playstyles (poke, poke, and more poke) mean they move up and down together with the meta, especially if they don’t receive any direct changes. Long story short – in a meta where poking from a distance is so strong, being able to return damage or poke alongside a teammate is really great.
Tier 1 – Vainglorious
3 Blackfeather – Blackfeather received a fairly large nerf in the form of a bug fix – he can no longer quadruple-proc the Book of Eulogies heal, which has removed a lot of his lane sustain. Because of this (and the nerf to his health, which was likely applied in a secret hotfix*), he is a lot squishier in lane and can be bullied out much more easily. However, his wave clear was slightly buffed, and he still retains an enormous amount of late-game strength – it’s just a bit harder to get to that late-game now.
2 Ringo – Kind of a sleeper this patch, Ringo has stealthily made his way up the list. Our favorite one-armed gunslinger is immensely strong at level 1, and can easily bully any other lane carry (except proficient Skaarfs and Celestes) out of lane. This in combination with his Gambler build working extremely well against double squishy compositions has made him an extremely effective laner.
1 Vox – You know those new gold bounties we got in 1.12? They seem to have great synergy with Vox’s Tier 2 skin, because man does Jack Sparrow Vox love them. As long as a game goes past twenty minutes, Vox can outscale almost any team with the complete Sound and the Fury build and really crush your enemies’ dreams while double infused. His damage has always been crazy high late-game, and we’re seeing even more of that in 1.13.
Jungle Carry
Tier 3 – Getting There
11 Petal – Petal was unintentionally nerfed in 1.13 with the transition of her munions’ health system from ticks to numeric health. While well-meaning and possibly a step in the right direction, the actual health values definitely don’t scale well enough – they get completely wiped out by almost any AoE (area of effect) skill. Good news for Petal lovers, though – this has got to be the bottom of the pit, right? Right?
10 Rona – Rona still suffers from all the problems she did last patch. After removing the burst from her Foesplitter, Rona feels incredibly weak, and Glaive far outperforms her as a weapon carry jungler. It’s been a sad few patches for this barbarian, but I’m sure she’ll amass enough anger to mount a comeback in a future patch.
Tier 2 – Simply Amazing
9 Joule – Unfortunately, Earthsplitter Joule is pretty potato right now. Her Thunder Strike is a great skill – it has a weapon ratio and can crit… hey, that sounds like Glimmershot! Except Glimmershot can be used four times back-to-back before it has a roughly three second cooldown. That sounds a heck of a lot better than weapon Joule! Jagerbomb Joule is a bit more interesting, but because it requires more gold, it’s probably better played in lane to avoid the risk of being facerolled in jungle.
8 Taka – Taka has crawled out of Tier 3, but not by any large margin. Both weapon and crystal builds can be fairly effective at eliminating a squishy target in this double squishy meta, though against the extremely powerful early games of the currently popular junglers, Taka suffers immensely.
7 Krul – An innovative build (see the Dead Man’s Revenge) has given Krul some flexibility in build paths, but he all too often gets eaten for breakfast early-game. Smart rotations can get this undead viking to the point of dominating the game, so it isn’t impossible to win with Krul, but it is fairly difficult.
6 Reim – This grumpy old man landed on the Fold this patch, and he’s a heck of a lot of fun to play. He does fantastic damage, has a large amount of CC (crowd control), and, due to his perk giving him a lot of tankiness while he is dealing damage, wins fights easily against melees. However, he has a slow move speed and is extremely weak to poke. I’d suggest trying out a Reim and Phinn pairing in jungle – the combos can be hilariously devastating!
5 Blackfeather – Jungle Blackfeather is unaffected by the Book of Eulogies bug fix, but he’s moved down a bit due to being extremely weak to early invades by both Skye and Kestrel. However, he is a fairly good counter to squishy heroes, so if he can manage to get to his crazy late-game, he can dominate the match.
4 Koshka – Kestrel can usually outdamage Koshka if she lands all four arrows on her face, but that is by no means a sure thing, and if Kestrel misses, this rabid cat can easily destroy the squishy archer. In the mid-game, Koshka can usually burst down squishies fairly easily and push to close the game before she’s outscaled. However, in the late-game, Koshka’s subpar scaling increasingly becomes a liability, so if she doesn’t win early, she probably won’t win at all.
Tier 1 – Vainglorious
3 Glaive – Glaive’s Amputator build can be fairly reliable in bursting down squishy heroes in this double squishy meta. Kestrel dies so easily to an Afterburn and a couple of crits, especially since Afterburn solves the problem of eating huge pokes from a distance by simply closing the gap with a large dash.
2 Skye – This mobile mech user may have received a wave clear nerf, but that doesn’t affect her jungle performance – Skye puts on the hurt in jungle and doesn’t let up. With crystal scaling on her Forward Barrage’s damage, length, and damage amplification for lock-on, Skye basically has quadratic scaling, and it shows. Suri Strike is also a very loaded skill – repositioning that can be used for chasing, lining up a Forward Barrage, or juking, all combined with enormous AoE damage.
1 Kestrel – So you know how Kestrel isn’t Tier 1 in lane because of how lane minions body block everything? Well, strangely enough, there aren’t any lane minions in jungle (surprise!), and Kestrel’s enormous Glimmershot damage (on a 0 second cooldown) can absolutely stomp all over teams early-game, slowly but surely snowballing into a victory. Unfortunately, body-blocking (the best counter to Goatslayer Kestrel) doesn’t work all that well early-game, when supports haven’t built enough defense to be able to tank those arrows.
Support
Tier 3 – Getting There
5 Fortress – Aroo! Pickles is sad because no one seems to want to play with him. Unfortunately, Fortress dies far too quickly against Kestrel, and his hyperaggressive playstyle has fallen out of favor due to the gold bounties that were introduced last patch. Late-game Fortress is little more than a fluffy minion that you can farm gold off of, since his kit offers such little late-game utility.
Tier 2 – Simply Amazing
4 Adagio – Support Adagio is not the best pick right now. Every team needs a tanky frontliner to absorb incoming poke damage, and if you’re building crystal power to take advantage of his kit, he’s not nearly tanky enough. Conversely, if you build tanky items on Adagio, you’re not really taking advantage of the crystal scaling on his abilities, so another support is probably a better choice.
3 Phinn – Phinn is a heck of a support. He has great base damage on Quibble, allowing him to speed up jungle clear by a fair margin by weakening camps. His Polite Company gives fantastic defensive stats to allies, allowing them to get the better deal in trades. Forced Accord is really the shining, golden piece of his kit, though. Landing a Forced Accord on the squishy carries currently dominating the meta can absolutely wreck them if your team follows up correctly. Even though he is unpopular, Phinn is an extremely strong hero.
Tier 1 – Vainglorious
2 Ardan – Daddy of the Fold Ardan is still an extremely effective support. Protecting teammates and setting up teamfights with Gauntlets never really goes wrong. However, Ardan is not really the best body-blocker on the market against bursty pokes. People are also learning that Reflex Blocks aren’t actually that hard to use; you can easily trigger one to run out of a Gauntlet.
1 Catherine – Similarly to how Ringo has slowly been clawing his way up into a higher position, Catherine has moved her way up too. Although Catherine still doesn’t protect her allies as well as Ardan, her kit has shown that it has always been strong, and that meta changes decide who is top dog support. Kestrel, a top hero this patch, deals huge bursts of damage, and Catherine’s Stormguard counters that very nicely, reflecting a lot of that damage right back at enemies. Additionally, Blast Tremor absolutely cripples squishy teams (since you can burst them down while they are silenced), especially if they rely on skills for damage.
Some popular team compositions include:
- Skye jungle, Blackfeather (or Glaive) lane, Ardan
- any of the strong crystal carries (Skaarf, Vox, or Celeste) in lane, Kestrel or Glaive jungle, Ardan or Catherine support
- Ringo lane, Skye jungle, and Catherine or Ardan – many high-Elo players are running this to climb in Ranked
And that’s another tier list! We hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading, as always!
* Recall that Blackfeather’s base health was supposed to be nerfed in 1.13, but the change was not actually applied. However, players have noticed Blackfeather’s health display being buggy, the most reasonable explanation for which is that he was secretly hotfixed.